Archive for the ‘Employment’ Category

Is it just me? Or does it seem paradoxical to anyone else that there are those who are employed and have housing only because there are folks who are homeless?

Even more staggering to me is that homeless support services (HSS) in the U.S. — something which started out with altruistic, well-meaning intentions — has become little more than big business. It is a multi-billion dollar industry annually. Sadly, it has also become quite bureaucratic in its own right. (more…)

As a society we’ve become quite skilled at assuming a person is homeless through some fault of their own — even when there is ample evidence to the contrary. I’m not sure why this is.

Perhaps it has to do with our having viewed homelessness through the eyes of stereotypes for so long that we aren’t willing to admit that we’ve been wrong. Or maybe it’s because if we concede that what we’ve believed all along is incorrect, we’ll have to come up with some way of explaining why we’ve done nothing to remedy homelessness.

All of which makes me wonder how long it will take before we do own up to it. I certainly hope it won’t be too much longer — especially for the sake of our nation’s children. (more…)

Earlier this week I received an e-mail from a woman who, five years ago found, herself homeless.

As a single parent with a pre-kindergarten aged child and unable to afford housing, "Meagan" did what many newly homeless persons do: she turned to local homeless support services in hopes of finding assistance to get out of homelessness and back into housing.

A little less than a year ago, I wrote a post mentioning that New York City was going to begin charging those homeless who were working "rent." The policy was meant to bring NYC into compliance with a 1997 New York state law.

Amid public outcry and criticism and a potential lawsuit, (not to mention a few major snafus regarding how the city was determining how much "rent" to charge) the city sidelined the policy – until last week, when the Bloomberg administration announced it would re-instate the "rent" requirement. (more…)